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We are back with part 2 of building our awesome air conditioned dog house! If you missed part one, you can view it here. With the pieces pre-built and ready to go from our weekend working on the dog house with my dad, it was time to assemble the dog house in our new back yard.

Alex decided the dog house would fit best on the side of our yard leading into the garden boxes. I was not sure about it at first, but after setting up the floor and a couple walls, I knew he was right. Even Wezley agreed that this would be a great place for his new house.

I mean look at that little face! This was a costly and time consuming project, but seeing him jump around in it while we worked on building his new house made me sure it was a good idea.

Once all the walls were securely nailed together, it was time to install the wall air conditioning unit. One thing we did not really plan for was the space needed to bend the cord to the outside. Normally a wall ac unit is plugged in inside, but since we are running an extension cord on the outside, we needed the cord to go out the hole, while keeping it snug.

So with some quick chisel skills, my dad notched out a cord size groove that works like a charm! Now the cord goes to the outside, but it does not leave a large gap to let the weather in.

The next step was to finish attaching the ac unit in the wall.

Looking good!

With the air conditioner in place, we moved on to the window. My dad started with a line of caulk all around the outside of the window hole.

Then we held the window in place and he worked his way around nailing it in down. Once the window was nailed down it was time to go out for a quick lunch and a trip to Home Depot to pick up roof shingles, trim and hinges for the door.

The roof shingles we picked out were simple comp single shingles. We ended up needing about 20 shingles to complete the roof.

Once we got back home we nailed on the trim and the shingles. We mis-calucated on the trim and will need to come back and finish it out before the rainy season. We will also need to paint the wood too, but I am still deciding on colors.

Last but not least we attached the door with the doggie door framed in it. After adding a bed and some blankets, the house is ready for use. It has been a few months since we finished this project (still to be painted and finish the trim), and I am happy to report that the boys love it! We find them coming out of the house each day when we get home from work and sometimes they go lay in there if we are all hanging out in the yard. I could not be happier with how it turned out and I am glad our pampered pups can stay out in the yard year-round without me having to worry about the weather.

I figured it was about time that I share our amazing air conditioned dog house. We built it back in June, but have yet to finish off the trim and paint it. Being that we live in a hot climate in the summer and we wanted the dogs to stay in the yard while we are at work, we decided to build a insulated dog house. It came in quite handy this summer when we had 7 days over 100 degree late June/early July and plenty other hot days throughout the summer. First things first, we went to work sketching out a plan.

The first plan ended up being a little excessive. After measuring it out on the floor and marking it with tape, we realized that this was going to be a bit too large, especially for our small dog (now dogs). I really wanted to keep the door in the front for us to be able to access easily, the air conditioner and a window. After talking it over, Alex came up with plan #2.

While similar to our first plan, this one is a bit smaller with the window on a side wall instead of on the front wall. It is still an impressive dog house, but will fit much better in our small yard. Now that we had a plan, we were off to Home Depot to buy some of the supplies, starting with the air conditioner unit.

Before we went to Home Depot, I did a lot of research on the different models. We did not need a large unit since the dog house is so small. I found the GE 6,400 BTU Window Room Air Conditioner on Amazon and knew that was the right option for us. I was able to find out that it was in stock at Home Depot so we opted to pick it up instead of having it shipped. Next we needed a doggie dog.

We decided to get the Ruff-Weather Pet Door. It has two flaps to help keep out the elements and is built really well. It was a bit of a splurge at around $100, but if we are paying to insulate and air condition this dog house, then a quality door makes sense. Last item we bought was a window.

The window was also from Home Depot and was a 2 ft x 2 ft bathroom Jeld Wen window and costs about $70. After we had these supplies on hand I gave my dad a call and made plans to come visit and get working on the dog house. My mom and dad bought the plywood, framing wood and insulation sheets for us as out house warming present, making this project a bit more affordable.

After going over the plans together, we knew how we were going to get this dog house knocked out. Our plan was to pre-build the walls, floor and roof and then my parents would come down one weekend and we would assemble it in our new yard.

With my dad leading the charge, we went to work measuring…

and cutting out the pieces we would need.

I love seeing it start to take shape. Super exciting to see a vision on paper become reality. We could not have done it without the expertise of my dad!

Once the pieces we needed were all cut, we moved along to framing out the walls.

Since they are going the be insulated, they had to be built-out with frames like this.

We bought 2 types of insulations. The first was this insulfoam that was used in the walls. This foam is good, but for the roof we stepped it up.

The roof foam is reflective to help keep the heat out even more.

Alex cut the insulfoam for the walls and stuffed it in just like a puzzle piece.

Once all the walls were insulated, we lightly tacked them together to make sure everything fit together correctly. It would be quite a bummer to get to our house to assemble and find out a measurement was off this whole time!

Next the roof and back wall were built and added on. Here is a view of the side with the hole for the air conditioning unit.

And the larger hole on this side is for the window to fit into.

Once we were sure that all the pieces were correct, we stacked them up with the other materials to be ready to drive down to our new house and assemble the following week.

Phase one complete! Click here to read on about how we assembled the house in our new backyard (Part 2 coming soon).

While this is not new news for anyone who personally knows us or follows me on Instagram, we have added a new addition to our family… Doggie Augie!! Alex & I have been talking about adopting another dog once we had a back yard. We really wanted to get a friend for Wezley and after seeing about a thousand adorable dogs while on vacation in Santa Cruz we decided to go for it. Yes, it was a little crazy being that we just moved in the house, one week later (the first weekend in July) we were at the Sacramento SPCA trying to find that right little mutt to take home.

I am a huge advocate of adopting when getting a new dog. There are so many dogs out there that are wonderful and just need their forever home. The Sacramento SPCA is a great facility and that is were we have adopted both of our dogs from. I mean, just look how cute little Augie is?!?! Who would ever give him up?

We knew going in that we wanted to get a dog under 25 pounds to make sure that Wezley did not get dominated. Wez is a 15 pound Chihuahua mix with tons of personality. He can hold his own with other larger dogs and his best friends are a Vizsla, a Goldendoodle and a Dalmatian mix. But, being that we planned for them to be buds in the yard all day while we are at work, we wanted to get Wez a reasonable size friend. And then we met Augie. Augie is a 12 pound Chihuahua Manchester. He reminds us so much of Wez, but more floppy and puppy like. He is such a sweetheart.

We brought Wez to the meeting area to see how the two would do together. With both being males, we needed to be sure that they could work out any problems without too much aggression and learn to get along. I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight, but after a few growls and a period of ignoring each other, all it took was a couple cookies to be happy little friends.

I think we might have a problem….we love our little guys so much and immediately went to the store to spoil our new little guy. New toys, treats, and gear! We have also built them the most amazing dog house ever, but more on that later.

We are so happy with how well Augie has adjusted to be part of our family. In a matter of hours they were both cuddled up on the bed with us and now they are inseparable. Wrestling around the house, cuddling on the couch and getting lots of love!